I will lift up my eyes unto the hills

It's remarkable how many problems can be temporarily solved by taking a long motorcycle ride. Not solved, so much, as shelved, because when you are riding a motorcycle, all the problems in the world are reduced to the bubble of the road ahead, around, and behind you. Climate change? No problem, as long as those leaves aren't wet. Trump getting re-elected? No problem, as long as you don't have to make a sharp turn on grooved pavement. Husband with dementia died three weeks ago? Not an immediate issue, unlike that "motorcycles use caution" sign looming up. Big black clouds ahead? Problem.

Steve, possibly unwisely, handed the task of finding a destination for an overnight trip over to me. "Money's no object", I thought, and plumped for the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont. Why? Because it's there. No, my thought process was more deliberate than that. I looked at the travel bible,  Atlas Obscura, defined the radius for a reasonable ride in the back end of October, rejected Claude Rains' grave in Wolfeboro NH as being too boring, and chose Stowe, which boasted easy access to a couple of attractions, and the Trapp Family Lodge. Now, I am not a Sound of Music fan. My memory of the film, which goes back over fifty years, was that it bored me to tears as a child and would certainly do so again now, if I had the misfortune to see it. But there were Highland cows on the website, and that was enough for me.

Apparently Doe a Deer was all too much for Steve, who went into a tailspin and spent the night before our trip drinking beer and making unwise Facebook posts. This was why I set off alone, but happily, up the roads to Stowe. He would, he said, join me later, after he had done some important stuff around the house, like sleeping. In fact, he joined me earlier. When I pulled into the hotel parking lot and pulled out my phone, there was a text from Steve to say that he was already there. He had cheated by taking the highway.

I did not take the highway, mostly. I set off by swooping up and around on Route 63 in New Hampshire, my earbud clamped in, the nice British boy in my GPS telling me where to go, the trees black, gold and red against the bluest of skies. The nice British boy let me down badly once I had crossed into Vermont, delaying the instruction to take the left lane until it was too late to do so, which is why I found myself on Interstate 91. It took me a second or two and an I91 sign to realise my mistake. The usual clue that you're on a highway is that trucks thunder around you and point it out, but this is Vermont and there just aren't that many trucks. Even without trucks, highway riding is not backroads riding. It's boring and the only way to make it less so is to go faster, which I don't like to do and which Steve presumably did. 

So I came off I91 as soon as was decent, stopped at a gas station to re-programme my bad British boy, and give him strict instructions to avoid highways and tolls, and went back to swooping and dreaming. The roads I took wound through the Green Mountains, past small ramshackle farms, through towns that had once thrived. I spotted a sign for the Precision Museum in Windsor Vermont which spoke to me, past a chef-owned restaurant which also spoke to me, and apparently to Steve when we rode back past it the next day, passed safely under some ominously black clouds, and ultimately up Trapp Hill Road to the Trapp Family Lodge where Steve and a fine collection of black and white photos of the Von Trapp family playing musical instruments in dirndls and bodices awaited.

That night we strolled, and strolled, and strolled some more, down the black road from the Trapp Lodge to the Trapp Bierhall where we hungrily ate unmemorable but Austrian-ish food and then worked our appetite back up again on our way up the hill to bed. The sky was big and black, and we saw the Milky Way and once again I learned how to spot the Big Dipper.

The next morning, once we had coffee'd ourselves in the Trapp Kaffeehaus, where I was reminded that croissants were originally Austrian and that it is possible to get a very good one outside France, we waited for a bit of warmth from the sun and then set off more companionably. Steve and I kind of travel alike, and although you can't communicate from bike to bike except in an advanced bluetooth way which we haven't and don't wish to master, I'm pretty sure he was responding to the cows and the ramshackle farms in the same way I do, although without making animal noises which has become one of my bike superstitions. If I see a cow, I moo in my helmet. If I see a sheep, I baa. I was perplexed once when I passed a sign saying "alpaca farm", but luckily there weren't any visible alpacas.

Our first stop was the Green Mount cemetery in Montpelier VT, which came up all of a sudden and was remarkably beautiful. I miss the oldness of graveyards in Europe, and the profligate stone expressions of grief in the great British Victorian cemeteries. I used to live right near Abney Park Cemetery in Stone Newington, which was unkempt and atmospheric and dripped with sadness. But Green Mount wasn't bad, and had just enough urns and angels to placate me, although the grass was clipped and the stones scrubbed. 

After the Green Mount excursion, the croissant had disappeared and we were well ready for a second breakfast. So we headed to the Common Café in Northfield Vermont, and after an excellent omelette headed down to the Precision Museum. This was small, and the gracious lady who welcomed us was unnervingly pleased we were there. There were some very precise machines, with those wonderful aesthetic flourishes that nineteenth century metal-workers could not stop themselves from contributing, but the whole place took all of half an hour, of which 11 minutes were spent watching the informational video. We sat by the rushing river that once turned the great machines, noted the bowing of the old brick walls bulging from their stone foundations, and were happy that we didn't have to worry about their upkeep.

Then home we rode, still under a blue blue sky, battling a stiff breeze which challenged my arm muscles. 

It's very different, and equally enjoyable, to ride a motorcycle alone and to ride a motorcycle with someone you love. Alone, I am an adventuress, a bold oddball, in my private world. With Steve, I am one of two oddballs, eager to compare notes on what we spotted and the sensations we experienced. Both work.